One thing that is often said of Dudamel is that he conducts music as if it had just been composed, without regard for what one critic termed “the accretions of past performances.”
But that’s part of the Rite’s magic, the conductor says. “It’s a hundred years later,” he says, “and it’s still so modern. Still, Sacre is new all the time. For me, that is the secret of the piece. I love to bring every line up. Sometimes, you listen to something very horizontal, but when you see the music in a vertical way ”” I’m talking about the line, every line in the orchestration ”” it’s amazing. You discover new colors, you discover, ‘Oh look, this is a very traditional harmony,’ but then you see the details ”” and then every time it’s different. I’m sure that this version will be completely different to the last one that I did.
“I think that the Rite is a symbol of the beginning of life,” Dudamel continues. “It’s beautiful because it’s so natural. Of course, you have these crazy moments of wild dynamics, but at the same time you feel that the rhythms and the melodies are so natural. They’re like this ancestral feeling of … ‘Wow, I think I have belief.’ ”
Read (or better listen to) it all (emphasis mine).